Missoula's Warm-Weather Transients and Their Tunnel-Sleeping Tendencies
There are many good things that come with spring. This is the time of year when people start to get active again. There is a well-known segment of fanatics in this community who have permanently sworn off gym memberships in favor of working out in the Great Outdoors. They are unable to accept the notion that exercising on stair-masters and ellipticals and various weight machines offers anything over taking a grueling run up the side of a mountain and doing a few dozen push-ups on the top.
For me, the biggest change that spring has brought is that I now ride my bike to and from work everyday. I get up around 6:00, when most the world is still dreaming, take my Ipod, my headlamp, and my backpack and I hit the bike trail that takes me nearly the whole way to work. I have to get off downtown and take Orange Street over to the North side.
On my way, I have to pass under the Orange St. Tunnel. This is always a sketchy scene, but it becomes a little more questionable before the sun has risen and the only thing lighting your way is a cheap energizer headlamp strapped to your forehead.
There are two options you can take when you come to the tunnel. You can choose to stay on the street and compete with fast-moving cars and trucks and stupid SUVs for the limited road space between the walls of the tunnel. Or, if that sounds a little too dangerous, you can stay on the sidewalk and pass under the tunnel by taking the pedestrian walkway. The latter sounds like a bit of a no-brainer, don't it? Well, maybe not.
It seems that there is a positive correlation between the annual rise in temperatures and the increase in Missoula's transient population. These western ramblers are drawn to Missoula by the stories they hear about it on the road. Generally, most of these stories are exaggerations, but a few of the things about Missoula that are passed around these social circles are qutie true.
For instance, we have a multitude of social services, day missions, shelters, and food pantries. We have practically unlimited free camping just outside of town. (Walk down the Kim Williams trail some summer evening before sunset and you'll run across more beer-drinking transients than you will walkers/runners/bikers). But perhaps what could be considered our biggest draw is that Missoula has a police force that takes a lenient stance towards this population. Compared to some places, our cops are goddamn saints.
I just heard a news report about a couple of cops in one town that grabbed a 7-year-old child by the neck and dragged him to their police car for riding his bike on the sidewalk. After detained, the boy was subjected to a verbal interegation, one of the cops was quoted as repeatedly saying, "Do you know what you did wrong, son?". . .
Anyway, regardless of how these people arrive in Missoula, they seem to be bringing more and more of their friends with them. Not that I mind. In fact, I think they keep Missoula on a more enlightened plane of reality. Summer comes and it's out with the rich, beamer-driving, trust-fund spending college kids and in with the patchouli-smelling, greasy-deadlock-sporting hippie/vagabond types.
Which brings me back to the Orange St. Tunnel. I was zipping through the tunnel's pedestrian walkway one morning last fall, trying to see through the darkness to detect anything that might be hazardous to run over with a 30-year-old ten speed Raleigh, when what did I come across at the end of the tunnel but some vagrant hippie kid sleeping on the sidewalk directly in my path. I slammed my breaks but knew I wouldn't be able to stop before leaving two nice tire treads over his sleeping body. Luckily I had enough time and good sense to veer sharply to the right and narrowly miss his head by six inches.
Ever since this episode, I've been a little more careful when crossing under the tunnel. I've also been a little more opposed to people who advocate for sleeping in traffic tunnels.
Selah.
Want to know more about Missoula's transient culture, check out this Missoula Independent article titled "Still Life with Street Kids" (This is the article from which I stole the great photos)
http://www.missoulanews.com/Archives/News.asp?no=5822
